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Oil spill brings 'death in the ocean from top to bottom'

Oil spill brings 'death in the ocean from top to bottom' By Frank Pope 24 May 2010 It has been an hour since our sport-fishing boat started streaking through the freshly oil-soaked marshes of Pass a Loutre, but we’re still only halfway through the slick. Eighteen miles out and the stink of oil is everywhere. Rashes of red-brown sludge are smeared across vast swaths, between them a swell rendered faintly psychedelic with rainbow-coloured swirls. Cutting the engines, we slide to a stop near Rig 313. We’re not supposed to be in the restricted zone [b*** me, BP], but other than the dispersant-spraying aircraft passing overhead there’s no one to see us. Despite the thick oil, we’ve seen only two clean-up boats out of the 1,150 that the response claims to have on site: one was broken down, the other was towing it.